Thanks all, for the quick approval.

On Wed, Mar 25, 2026 at 2:48 PM Mike Taylor <[email protected]> wrote:

> LGTM3
> On 3/25/26 7:07 a.m., Yoav Weiss (@Shopify) wrote:
>
> LGTM2
>
> On Wed, Mar 25, 2026 at 11:26 AM Philip Jägenstedt <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> LGTM1, I think this is a very straightforward case given that it's
>> already supported in Firefox and Safari. Thank you for verifying that
>> locally and adding the tests to WPT!
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 25, 2026 at 10:45 AM Dominik Röttsches <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Philip asked me a few questions, here are the details:
>>>
>>> Tests:
>>>
>>> The new WPT tests are in the CL: https://crrev.com/c/7692195
>>> These are newly added to WPT, but have been manually verified in Firefox
>>> on Linux and Safari on Mac and confirmed to show behavior that indicates
>>> full support for Avar2.
>>>
>>> Signals:
>>>
>>> *Web developers*: Positive
>>>
>>>
>>> This should be "Neutral" instead. I filled this field initially, but
>>> then moved to comment on
>>>
>>>> Google Fonts as an internal stake holder is keen on having this feature
>>>> available on the web for optimising future fonts.
>>>
>>>
>>> To "Other Signals", as we would not count Google Fonts under "Web
>>> Developers".
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Mar 24, 2026 at 4:27 PM Dominik Röttsches <[email protected]>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> *> Specification*
>>>> > https://www.iso.org/standard/87621.html
>>>>
>>>> As for specification details,  avar2 is part of the draft of the 5th
>>>> edition draft, ISO/IEC FDIS 14496-22 .
>>>> https://www.iso.org/standard/87621.html in Section 7.3.1. avar.
>>>>
>>>> On Tuesday, March 24, 2026 at 3:57:03 PM UTC+2 [email protected]
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> *Contact emails*
>>>>> [email protected]
>>>>>
>>>>> *Explainer*
>>>>> https://github.com/harfbuzz/boring-expansion-spec/blob/main/avar2.md
>>>>>
>>>>> *Specification*
>>>>> https://www.iso.org/standard/87621.html
>>>>>
>>>>> *Summary*
>>>>> Version 2 of the avar (Axis Variations) table enables font designers
>>>>> to create variable fonts with better control over interpolation. While the
>>>>> original variable font spec handles axes independently, avar2 allows axes
>>>>> to influence one another.
>>>>>
>>>>> This leads to fonts that are easier to use for content authors to use,
>>>>> and enable compact storage.
>>>>>
>>>>> Support for this feature in Blink means at the core, activating a
>>>>> compile flag in HarfBuzz that processes the version 2 additional fields of
>>>>> the avar table to extend axis variations processing.
>>>>>
>>>>> Avar2 works by using the same familiar concepts of font variations,
>>>>> but applying the variable delta values to the design axis specifications
>>>>> itself.  Plus, it allows doing this over a range of multiple axes.
>>>>>
>>>>> As an example, it allows the creation of "meta sliders" which control
>>>>> multiple variation axes at once, alleviating the user from fine-tuning and
>>>>> finding a useful corner of the font's design space.
>>>>>
>>>>> Avar2 gives font designers better control over the usable variation
>>>>> space of their font, and allows coordinating the adjustment of design axes
>>>>> across several axes. By defining the relationships between axes
>>>>> mathematically within the avar version 2 table, fonts can achieve complex
>>>>> designs with fewer masters, leading to smaller file sizes, because the
>>>>> interpolation is stored more efficiently.
>>>>>
>>>>> *Blink component*
>>>>> Blink>Fonts
>>>>> <https://issues.chromium.org/issues?q=customfield1222907:%22Blink%3EFonts%22>
>>>>>
>>>>> *Web Feature ID*
>>>>> font-variation-settings
>>>>> <https://webstatus.dev/features/font-variation-settings>
>>>>>
>>>>> *Motivation*
>>>>> Provide interoperability for this new feature of the of the Open Font
>>>>> Format font standard.
>>>>>
>>>>> *Initial public proposal*
>>>>> *No information provided*
>>>>>
>>>>> *TAG review*
>>>>> Not needed, as it is not a W3C spec, but ISO/OFF spec.
>>>>>
>>>>> *TAG review status*
>>>>> Not applicable
>>>>>
>>>>> *Goals for experimentation*
>>>>> None
>>>>>
>>>>> *Risks*
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> *Interoperability and Compatibility*
>>>>> Low, Safari and FireFox have shipped the feature. The change to add
>>>>> this feature adds WPT tests that perform basic interop tests which Safari
>>>>> and FireFox seem to handle correctly.
>>>>>
>>>>> *Gecko*: Shipped/Shipping Tests show that avar2 support is present in
>>>>> FireFox. Shaping and glyph variations work (tested on Linux).
>>>>>
>>>>> *WebKit*: Shipped/Shipping Tests show that Safari ships avar2 by
>>>>> means of support in the OS' CoreText libraries. Avar2 shaping and glyph
>>>>> variations work.
>>>>>
>>>>> *Web developers*: Positive
>>>>>
>>>>> *Other signals*: Google Fonts as an internal stake holder is keen on
>>>>> having this feature available on the web for optimising future fonts.
>>>>>
>>>>> *Activation*
>>>>> With the avar2 font-tech feature definition in
>>>>> https://drafts.csswg.org/css-fonts-5/#font-technologies-formats it is
>>>>> possible for authors to implement graceful degradation. Only if the UA
>>>>> understands the technology(avar2) attribute, it would load and use such a
>>>>> font.
>>>>>
>>>>> *Security*
>>>>> We pass all avar2 web fonts to Fontations, which actually increases
>>>>> security over using system rasterizers.
>>>>>
>>>>> *WebView application risks*
>>>>>
>>>>> Does this intent deprecate or change behavior of existing APIs, such
>>>>> that it has potentially high risk for Android WebView-based applications?
>>>>> No specific WebView risks.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> *Debuggability*
>>>>> Not applicable here, DevTools does not descend into sub features of
>>>>> Open Font Format or OpenType fonts and their activation.
>>>>>
>>>>> *Will this feature be supported on all six Blink platforms (Windows,
>>>>> Mac, Linux, ChromeOS, Android, and Android WebView)?*
>>>>> Yes
>>>>>
>>>>> *Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests
>>>>> <https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/docs/testing/web_platform_tests.md>?*
>>>>> Yes
>>>>> Covered by several WPT tests added as part of enabling avar2.
>>>>>
>>>>> *Flag name on about://flags*
>>>>> *No information provided*
>>>>>
>>>>> *Finch feature name*
>>>>> *No information provided*
>>>>>
>>>>> *Non-finch justification*
>>>>> It is not possible to have a cleanly isolating RuntimeEnabledFeature
>>>>> flag for the launch of this feature. The tech(avar2) support can be gated,
>>>>> which controls whether the UA selects an avar2 font if it is tagged as
>>>>> such.
>>>>> HarfBuzz (where shaping support for avar2 is implemented) only allows
>>>>> this as a compile time feature. Fontations (where glyph rendering support
>>>>> for avar2 is implemented) has no switch and we were already shipping 
>>>>> glyhph
>>>>> variant support for this feature when switching to Fontations.
>>>>>
>>>>> *Rollout plan*
>>>>> Will ship enabled for all users
>>>>>
>>>>> *Requires code in //chrome?*
>>>>> False
>>>>>
>>>>> *Tracking bug*
>>>>> https://crbug.com/40246300
>>>>>
>>>>> *Measurement*
>>>>> Blink.Fonts.VariableFontsRatio metric measures different font format's
>>>>> instantiation ratios. This covers avar2 and shows the proportion of avar2
>>>>> fonts among all web fonts.
>>>>>
>>>>> *Availability expectation*
>>>>> Across browsers.
>>>>>
>>>>> *Estimated milestones*
>>>>> Shipping on desktop 148
>>>>> Shipping on Android 148
>>>>> Shipping on WebView 148
>>>>>
>>>>> *Anticipated spec changes*
>>>>>
>>>>> Open questions about a feature may be a source of future web compat or
>>>>> interop issues. Please list open issues (e.g. links to known github issues
>>>>> in the project for the feature specification) whose resolution may
>>>>> introduce web compat/interop risk (e.g., changing to naming or structure 
>>>>> of
>>>>> the API in a non-backward-compatible way).
>>>>> *No information provided*
>>>>>
>>>>> *Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status*
>>>>> https://chromestatus.com/feature/5169590743203840?gate=6513397493530624
>>>>>
>>>>> This intent message was generated by Chrome Platform Status
>>>>> <https://chromestatus.com/>.
>>>>>
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